Techno//Marketer - Matt Dickman on Marketing and Social Technology

Technology redefines categories and experience

I was not waiting on line at 5am for the iPad like some other people around the US. It's a device without a niche for me right now.

Think what you will of it, however, the technology behind the iPad and similar devices is helping to redefine categories that have had relatively little innovation in centuries.

Take the book industry. Now, I love my Kindle and it's innovative enough, but it uses the same paradigm as a print book. It works for what I need (quick consumption and ease of travel), but it is limited.

The experience of the Kindle is okay. It could be smoother and reminds me of what Blackberrys were like about 5 years ago. Get your hands on a new Blackberry and you'll see what I am talking about. It's smooth and easier to use yet still functional. The Kindle will catch up quickly.

Now, think about what publishing can look like on a device that senses when you tilt it or when you touch it. Have a look:

[video embed]

The experience that new technology provides opens doors and lets us shift our thinking about old standards and the experience that can be delivered.

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Technorati Tags: Marketing, Matt Dickman, Technology, iPad, Apple, User Experience

First//Look: Augmented reality

What do you get when you take a webcam, a piece of paper and some cool 3D animation? You get augmented reality (AR). This is relatively new though it's been experimented with for a couple of years at least. In short, AR is the combination of objects in the real world being combined with virtual objects using a webcam and some programming.

Sounds pretty cool eh? You have to see it to know what I'm talking about.

[Feed readers please click through to the post for the video]

Examples you can try yourself right now:

• Toyota iQ
  
• Volvo Ocean Race
  
• GE Smart Grid
  

Potential uses:

• The symbols that it uses can be printed on anything; paper, t-shirts, ads, etc.
  
• Any time you want to make a physical connection with virtual objects
  
• Allows interaction and engagement with printed pieces
  
• People are working on using mobile device cameras to do this while you're on the go
  
• It's just plain cool. Give it a try!
  

BMW looks at using AR to diagnose issues and help mechanics be more efficient

Turn the real world into a huge video game

Really bring Second Life into first life

This is pretty cutting edge, so not every company is going to be comfortable with it. The hardware barrier is pretty low (webcam) so this can hit a mass audience. It's great for presenting things when in conceptual mode (architecture, cars, etc.) as well as adding interactivity to existing items.

My advice is try one of the models above and think about the possibilities in your business. The hardest part may be to stop thinking of them.

[Hat tip to the Fleishman-Hillard digital team in St. Louis for putting this back on my radar screen.]

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Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, video, virtual worlds, web2.0, Augmented Reality

IDG Next Generation Marketing 2008 - Chang-Il Choi, LG Household and Healthcare

Chang is on the consumer research team at LG's Household and Healthcare. He focused on product design, evolution and innovation. Internal and external forces help companies innovate.

Key takeaways:

• Customer research in Web 2.0 is the focus of Chang's presentation
  
• Creation of new products requires creative customer involvement
  
• Internal customers - inner creative staff and researchers
  
• External customers - expert customers and other business experts
  
• This helps companies break inertia and myopia internally and to use external inertia
  
• Look at current and customer competitors
  
• Find competitive advantages in design, quality, ads, etc.
  
• Trendspotting is necessary - possibly looking at restrictions and overcoming them
  
• Cross-pollinating teams will help drive new ideation for products
  
• Involving the right outside parties can help lead to more innovation where not expected - need to identify the lead users
  
• Experts in other industries can help find new insights that apply
  
• Darwin's theory of evolution was spawned from diversity and this is what is happening in technology today - more options let us see this evolution
  
• The milk industry shows us the evolution of product/package design - calcium milk, skim, coffee creamer, etc.
  

Here is an example Chang mentioned from Japan for a new drink called White Coffee from Kirin (better know for their beer brewing in the US). This shifts the consumer from traditional views of coffee/packaging. It could work or backfire.

Do one thing well

There is a lot to be said about doing one thing very well. Services like Twitter started as a way to update friends on what you are doing and it has stayed true to its mission. Other services have started simple and have fallen victim to feature creep and trying to be everything to everyone.

I am particularly fond of online applications that have some focus, use the medium very well and extend the focus in strategic, well-planned ways.

Take this new site called Umbrella Today. If you go to the site and enter your zip code, it tells you whether or not you need an umbrella that day. Super simple, very useful and they extend it to mobile very logically and at the right point in the interaction.

Once you see if you need an umbrella, they offer you an option to see if you would like an SMS alert should you need an umbrella in the future.

Simplification of complex systems and applications is a niche market in itself. This is a perfect example, think about how many clicks and how much reading it takes you to find out the answer to this simple question on a weather site.

There are very few sites that can maintain their focus, but those that do remain useful and relevant. What examples of simple websites or programs do you love?

Technorati Tags:
digital, marketing, Matt Dickman, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, trends, Twitter

Video week day 4.5; pioneers and visionaries

As I prep the final video installment in video week here on the blog I wanted to share some shining examples of video at its best. The following should serve as examples of what to consider when you look at the power of video and what it brings to the table from an informational, branding and education point of view. Enjoy.

Gary Vaynerchuk - Wine Library TV
If Gary doesn't make you want to get up and create video content then you may be hopeless. His enthusiasm is off the charts, his knowledge of wine is incredible and the content follows suit. He has created an empire in the wine industry, his posts average 200-300 comments and people love him. His honesty and authenticity should serve as role models for us all.

Ask a Ninja
Yes this is more comedic, but these guys have created a character, a loyal following and a merchandise business to back up the demand.

BlendTec - Will It Blend
Will It Blend is one of the best examples of a company realizing the potential of the video space, choosing to fully engage in a valuable way and letting the conversation happen organically. BlendTec makes a line of high-end, powerful blenders. They're so powerful that you can blend everything from a leaf rake to a crowbar to an iPhone. They stay extremely relevant by looking at trends in social media and creating content around it. When Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video took off on YouTube, BlendTec created a video.

BMW - BMW Films
This is from a few years ago, but BMW's creation of webisodes to promote their cars in the format of short films took the Web by storm. This video featuring thier M5 sedan and Madonna was the most popular. It's engaging, showcases the product and is absolutely memorable.

BMW - GINA concept car
Not to harp on BMW, but they absolutely grasp the power of video. While most companies hide their innovations and forward thinking, BMW uses video to position themselves as thought leaders and true innovators. Check out this video featuring their new concept car, GINA. Do you hide your innovations or showcase them?

These are just a few examples, but I hope they bring you inspiration in your thinking about video as a viable, powerful medium.

What companies are doing video that you enjoy or get value from? Let me know!

If you missed the first videos in the series you can find them here:

• Distribution
  
• Editing
  
• How I create my video tutorials
  
• Hardware and software options
  

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Technorati Tags:
conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, video, tips

Visualizing interaction design

Did you know that there is a large, passionate community of digital design experts who focus on the ways that a consumer interacts online? It's a level above and beyond what a pure web designer does. Their thinking goes beyond Flash intros and shiny 2.0 graphics. These professionals think about how we consume sites visually and physically with the mouse and help brands convey their identity no matter the format.

A problem that I run in to often is that people don't get what interaction design is. I start to explain that it's a custom process that is generally design-led. Still, they look at me puzzled.

To solve this, I've started looking for great examples to show people. One of the coolest examples of this is for a site that was done for Mercedes Benz in the UK. It's called A-to-S (playing off of their A-class and S-class lines).

The site uses Flash as the technology platform, but the experience behind each letter allows you to almost touch the screen. The mouse interacts in very logical, physical ways.

Have a look and let me know what you think. These small details make the difference in the experience when used correctly. Yes, there is more to interaction design, but I'm looking at the basics here. The complete definition of interaction design (IxD) can be found here or on the IxDA website here.

Technorati Tags:
design, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, trends, IxD, interaction design

What would it take to topple Twitter?

Twitter has a double unfair advantage over its competitors; a huge user base (estimated at over a million users now) and a very solid head start.

This hasn't stopped a host of new competitors from trying to give it a go. Among the latest competitors are BrightKite, Jaiku (who is owned by Google), Plurk, Utterz and even Facebook and LinkedIn have begun enabling micromedia updates on user profiles.

[Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod]

However, as Twitter's service woes keep mounting and user sentiment keeps edging toward the negative, I have to wonder...what would it take to topple Twitter?

In order to understand this, we need to look at what makes Twitter work. Let's break them down so we can see how it's gained such wide-spread popularity.

1. Simplicity: Twitter does one thing really well. It lets you communicate what you're doing right now. Now other functionality (no matter how easy it would be to implement), 140 characters, one text field and one button. Anybody can look at it and start using it in minutes.

   What competitors need to do: Though I think that there is room beyond 140 characters of text on a service like this (think video and photos), it needs to remain easy to use. Design and usability needs to be where the majority of the development time is spent. The technology should, as I've said before, fade away to the background. If it's not clear on what the user should do within 5 seconds of opening the page it's too complicated.

2. Ease of use: This builds on the previous idea of simplicity. Twitter let's you use it. It gets the heck out of your way and adds value by supporting conversation. The interface guides the user smoothly through the interactions. Posting a message is easy, replying is easy and the content is simple text. That's ease of use.

   What competitors need to do:This is a no-brainer. Any competitor who is going to topple Twitter will have to have an extremely easy to use service. Like I mentioned before, a lot of attention needs to be paid here. Too many services offer more features/better technology, but are a pain to use.

3. Mobility: Twitter has a very strong mobile platform. Not only is the SMS (text messages) updating solid, but the mobile site allows most of the regular site's functionality from nearly any device and network. Either option allows for seamless use when away from the browser.

   What competitors need to do: There is no option for the competition to miss this crucial piece of the equation. The portability of the user experience has to be in place. Users need to be able to update and receive updates from any device in the world. SMS is growing in popularity and allows quick updates from US networks. The mobile site allows more reach and really lets the user step away from their computer with confidence. SMS also serves an important role in getting messages to people and breaking through the clutter.

4. Platform agnostic: We just touched on the mobile platform, but Twitter's open architecture has allowed developers to extend the service to IM (AOL/GTalk/Jabber) as well as desktop applications. For IM, users add Twitter as a friend and send it their updates. Applications like Twhirl work like any desktop application (think Start > Applications > Twhirl) and don't make you keep a browser open at all times.

   What competitors need to do: This is another area that any competitor worth their salt will need to copy. The open architecture allows the development community to do its work and enhance the service faster than the competitor would be able to.

5. Strong RSS: Twitter has a very strong RSS architecture. You can subscribe to individual's feeds, your own feed (messages and replies) and use the RSS feeds to build other services. Other services like Twitterfeed use RSS to update Twitter accounts automatically. You can look at my "Techno//Marketer" twitter feed for an example. That feed is 100% auto-generated by Twitterfeed.

   What competitors need to do: No question here either. RSS is a staple of the new digital frontier.

6. Widgetization: Twitter had this right from the start. One of the most powerful ways that Twitter spread through the social media space was from the blog widget that allowed people to promote their messages as well as the service. It added value to the reader and drove new users. You can see my example in the right-hand panel of this blog.

   What competitors need to do: The more options people have to spread their content the better. Formats should be adjustable (width, height), customizable (color, branding) and should work everywhere possible.

7. The community: This is Twitter's ace in the hole. No matter how good other services are, no matter how easy they are to use, no matter how comprehensive the utility there is no use for a service like this that doesn't have a community. While some competitors have been around longer they have not been able to build the buzz and following that Twitter has. Some of this is due the founder's background (having founder Blogger.com) having an immediate, connected audience.

   What competitors need to do: You have to transplant the community. What I mean is that a competitor that's looking to topple Twitter (not build a new, unique audience) will need to use the openness of Twitter against it. Accounts will need to be moved over while keeping all of that user's connections in tact. to move user's networks in whole. Accounts and logins will need to be moved to make it as easy a transition as possible.

What would you add to this list? Is Twitter indomitable at this point or are they Yahoo in 1999 with Google just around the corner?

Technorati Tags:
conversations, design, Facebook, FriendFeed, Jaiku, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, technology, micromedia, Twitter

The scalability of language; the role of design

In this final installment of my series on the scalability of language online, I want to take a look at the role of design. So far we've looked at the challenges of language, the problems with machine translation, and the role of video. Design, though, enables ideas to transcend language to reach a much broader audience.

One of the best (if not the best) example of someone who uses design to convey complex ideas effortlessly is David Armano. Let's look at this illustration. To convey the complex ecosystem that has been created through the birth of social media and the immense fragmentation, David used a series of ripples. Like a rock thrown into a pond, it's something everyone is familiar with. The size of the circles conveys their impact (as would the size of the rock). It's intuitive and doesn't need copy to assist it.

I asked David to give his thought on the use of design to overcome the language gap:

"We were born with two eyes. Before we could speak words, we could see the world, recognize the faces of our parents and gaze into their eyes.

Somewhere along the way, we forgot how important visual stimulus really is. We scribbled drawings before writing. Visuals help bring us back to a universal understanding where words can sometimes fail us. It's time to pick up our crayons again."

Other bloggers use design to help us think through ideas. Roger von Oech uses his offline products to inspire us all to be more creative. He taps into his wildly successful (and I can personally say very helpful) Whack Pack series to help you think differently. The imagery on each card gives you a better idea of what you can expect.

Design also manifests itself with photography and there is nobody who uses photography better and is more prolific than Thomas Hawk. Thomas is a photographer in San Francisco who covers topics that he is passionate about including photography (duh), photographer's rights and social media. Many of his posts are comprised of single photographs that convey the emotion of the time and place.

These are just a few of the examples where design helps to transcend language. It's a very powerful tool when put in the right hands. Design can just as easily confuse and bankrupt ideas of their merit.

Who have you noticed that uses design to convey ideas? Have you seen it used incorrectly? Let me know your thoughts.

[This was supposed to auto-post last Friday. Sorry for the delay.]

Technorati Tags:
communications, marketing, Matt Dickman, social networks, Techno//Marketer, design

Developing personas for marketing strategy

Personas are an extremely valuable tool for marketers in any field. If you're not familiar with the term, personas are representations of your target audience based on research and interviews. From PR to digital to advertising, any marketing team or agency can benefit from developing client- and/or brand-specific personas.

As an example, let's say one of your target audience types is a 18-21 year old male who likes emo music, skateboarding and high-end electronics. You would come up with a name for this person along the lines of "Nate" and you would find an image of him to use in your planning. When you start making decisions about marketing strategies, you would check back to "Nate" and ask if it would reach him. What would reach him more effectively? What message does he need to hear. That is a basic model of persona development. Here is some more information to guide you through the process.

Why personas are important:

• Personas put a face on the customer. Some persona programs give people names so you can refer to them and see them in a physical representation. The agency Organic creates persona rooms where their people live so the project team can become fully immersed.
  
• Personas remove the tendency to think of yourself as the customer. You have to step back and this gives you the structure to do so.
  
• Act as a guide throughout the process of developing marketing communications programs, cross mediums (print, digital, outdoor, TV, etc.).
  
• Keeps designers, copywriters, programmers on track and avoids waste by remaining focused on the customer.
  

How people screw them up:

• Personas take time and research to get right.
  
• This includes some time in the field and meeting face-to-face with the customer.
  
• People think they know their customer without looking at data.
  
• Personas are often used up front in the marketing strategy process and don't carry through the process.
  

How you can avoid screwing them up:

• Get data. Collect it from the web and third party sources. Analyze web traffic. Do in-person interviews and ethnography. Get a big picture view and then analyze it objectively.
  
• Talk to your customers. Videotape them. Record the audio. Take notes. Come back with a real feeling for who you are trying to reach.
  
• Compare what you saw to the data and look for the insights.
  
• Evolve the personas over time. Adapt them as your product lines change or the economy changes. These should be living, breathing entities.
  

A great sample model.
I found this great model on Idris Mootee's site in a post where he compared the problems that MBAs and MFAs have in the workplace. It's a great start to being able to wrap your head around these ideas.

1. Finding the users
Questions asked: Who are the users? How many are there? What do they do with the system/brand?
Methods used: Quantitative data analysis.
Documents produced: Reports.

2. Building a hypothesis
Questions asked: What are the differences between the users?
Methods used: Looking at the material. Labeling the groups of people.
Documents produced: Draft a description of the target groups.

3. Verifications
Questions asked: Data for personas (likes/dislikes, inner needs, values). Data for situations (area of work, work conditions). Data for scenarios (work strategies and goals, information strategies and goals).
Methods used: Quantitative data collection.
Documents produced: Reports.

4. Finding patterns
Questions asked: Does the initial labeling hold? Are there more groups to consider? Are all equally important?
Methods used: Categorization.
Documents produced: Descriptions of categories.

5. Constructing personas
Questions asked: Body (name, age picture). Psyche (extrovert/introvert). Background (occupation). Emotions and attitude towards technology, the company (sender) or the information that they need. Personal traits.
Methods used: Categorization.
Documents produced: Descriptions of categories.

6. Defining situations
Questions asked: What is the need of this persona?
Methods used: Looking for situations and needs in the data.
Documents produced: Categorization of needs and situations.

7. Validation and buy-in
Questions asked: Do you know someone like this?
Methods used: People who know (of) the personas read and comment on the persona descriptions

8. Dissemination of knowledge
Questions asked: How can we share the personas with the organization?
Methods used: Fosters meetings, emails, campaigns of every sort, events.

9. Creating scenarios
Questions asked: In a given situation, with a given goal, what happens when the persona uses the technology/engages with the brand?
Methods used: The narrative scenario - using personas descriptions and situations to form scenarios.
Documents produced: Scenarios, use cases, requirement specifications.

10. On-going development
Questions asked: Does the new information alter the personas?
Methods used: Usability tests, new data
Documents produced: A person responsible for the persona input from everybody who meet the users.

*Diagram developed by Lene Nielsen of Snitker & Co.

More quality persona resources:

• Usability.gov
  
• Cooper on the origin of personas
  
• Persona ecosystems - David Armano
  
• "Creating and using personas and scenarios to guide site design" - Razorfish
  
• Customer Storytelling at the heart of business success - boxes and arrows
  
• Personas, goals and emotional design - UXmatters
  
• Three important benefits of personas - Jared Spool
  
• Practical persona creation - evolt.org
  
• Yahoo's approach to keeping personas alive - Jared Spool
  

So what else do you do when planning personas? How do you develop them? How do you adapt them? What's the balance between qualitative and quantitative feedback?

 

Technorati Tags:
David Armano, marketing, Matt Dickman, Techno//Marketer, usability, user experience design, UXD, Jared Spool

Kelly Goto on user experience design basics

I had the pleasure of meeting Kelly Goto when she came in to do a presentation the Fleishman-Hillard office in Washington, D.C. yesterday. I've heard Kelly's name before from her myriad speaking engagements and I know her design consulting firm, but I had no idea that she was the person who wrote THE web design bible. (I highly encourage you to check out her book.)
 

Her presentations were full of very helpful tips and it was great to see a strategic, manageable approach to user experience design (UXD as it's called in the trade). There is a trend out there to make UXD so complicated and labor intensive that it becomes overwhelming and slows down the process. Her advice was to stay agile.

She talked at length about becoming an experience ethnographer and how she accomplishes what she does on a scale from Fortune 100 companies down to small projects. Her main point was finding the difference between what people say (in a focus group or interview) and what they do (either by following them or through photo diaries). That is where the valuable insights come into play.

Kelly asked us to find a balance between practical and emotional design. Making sure that the user accomplishes what they need to, but also that the experience is as good as it can be. She urged us to look at simplified applications like Twitter that really work to accomplish one task really well as a basis. Feature creep is a killer in web-based environments.

She and I talked about the constant "battle" inside agencies between technology and design and how the real opportunity for growth is to blend the two areas. CSS, for example, has given non-technical designers a way to use technology to impact the user experience in a positive way and from device to device.

We also spoke about how Flash development provides companies the ultimate opportunity to bring technology and design together, to have this conversation and move toward better experiences. The use of creative and ActionScript (the language that makes Flash move and interact with elements and data) provide a powerful tool for creating rich, immersive experiences.

As I mentioned in a post last week, the best technology around is invisible to the user. Design can act as a shield for technological complexity when done correctly, but can make simple technology overly complex if done poorly.

I absolutely loved her company moto which is "Exceed expectations, take vacations". I highly encourage you to seek out Kelly and her advice as it's truly valuable and practical for any organization.

Photo courtesy of petele on Flick.